I have spent over a year of my life at The Edinburgh Festival. That is both a reflection of the number of times I have performed up here and how most perfomers feel as they enter the last week of another Fringe. There are far too many memories to unpack, good bad and indifferent. For me, the good will always outweigh the bad, which is quite possibly why I keep coming back, although why it is also becoming harder and harder to justify the experience to my wife.
One of my favourite years was 2013 as I had a successful show that I had not expended too much emotional energy on – not only did I come up with the stated intention of simply having fun, I made money and played to decent audiences, which was in stark contrast to 2012. I was also living with two of my best friends, Mick Ferry and Hal Cruttenden, who would go on to be MC and Best Man at my wedding a year later (the speeches were ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.)
Our original flat was an absolute disaster, with rat traps under a leaking sink and so unfit for purpose Mick took one look at it, (while Hal stood screaming on a kitchen chair,) and demanded we were rehoused immediately. I missed all this drama and arrived the next day to a perfectly acceptable alternative and Hal’s pulse rate heading back towards ‘resting,’ or as close as it ever gets. If you ever need an estate agent to be ‘spoken’ to, could I recommend alumni of Counthill Comprehensive, Oldham over St Paul’s every time.
As a result of our enforced relocation, we also received some money back and decided to spend it on a slap up dinner at Fisher’s, which remains one of my favourite meals of all time. I wrote about it here. So good was it that when my girlfriend came up, it was the first place I took her to. I am contractually obliged to point out that this was also one of my favourite meals of all time.
Fast forward almost ten years and that former girlfriend and I had booked a babysitter and determined to try and forge a date night out of the Edinburgh madness. Unfortunately, thanks to my own lack of organisational capabilities, Fishers couldn’t fit us in at a suitable time. So I asked Jo Caulfield, wonderful comic, friend and Leith resident if she had any other recommendations. She suggested The Shore Bar & Restaurant, which happens to be in the building next to Fishers and owned by them. So, a pretty reasonable alternative.
It is a beautiful space – wood panelled throughout, with a vast mirror at one end of the bar to create the illusion of a much bigger room, and slightly more formal seating in a dining room off to the right. The whole place has a vaguely Gallic feel – no bad thing in my book – and I found myself tempted by the advertised Jazz Sunday lunch, which is no mean feat for anyone who knows my opinions about eating to music. A relatively brisk menu of solid fish and meat dishes was presented and I prepared for some serious cooking.
I really wanted to love The Shore, so it’s a pity I think we caught them on a slightly Monday night. So much was perfect, and I know Ms Caulfield to have excellent taste in everything except husbands (I’m going for a drink with him later,) but there were a couple of issues. My wife’s scallops with a burnt apple puree were excellent, but the accompanying greens contained pancetta that could really have benefitted from crisping up. I realise this sounds picky, but as she pointed out, there were a couple of lumps of what was essentially unrendered fat in there, and they were not particularly pleasant to eat. My spiced calamari were thoroughly workmanlike, with a decent, if not overly punchy smoked chilli mayonnaise. There was absolutely nothing wrong with them, but actually, the star of the show was a beautifully dressed side salad, zinging with freshness and crunch.
For main course, my wife had the fish pie with more of the exemplary salad. Frankly, if a restaurant of this calibre can’t get their fish pie right, we would have been in real trouble, but they did and we weren’t. I always feel bouillabaisse, though, should be a slightly decadent delight, a murky sauce holding bags of flavour and all kinds of fishy morsels within. Don’t get me wrong, this had some very good things in it – some beautiful sea trout, a few mussels, three pleasingly plump king prawns and the absolute highlight, a delicious piece of creamy crab toast. But the sauce, which I always feel should have the not-quite-but-almost-gritty consistency of a good soup de poissons felt a little underpowered and thin. It was in no sense a bad dish, it just didn’t wow me like a bouillabaisse should. I was also still quite hungry after eating it, so ordered bread to mop up the rest of the sauce – it may not have been the best I’ve had, but I certainly wasn’t going to waste it.
What felt like a slightly off night for the kitchen was compounded by a tarte au citron packed with a powerfully, lemony filling, but on a pastry that was far too thick in places and a brownie that while tasty, felt more floury than squidgy, which, as we all know, is just not quite right.
It was a good date night. We were child free for a few hours for a start. We had eaten some nice things. But there were a coupe of bits we were not so keen on, and when the bill took ten minutes to arrive I must admit I started doing that face which meant my wife started doing that face. Service otherwise had been great, and I don’t think a bill of £90 for a decent meal for two was anything other than reasonable.
Look. I know we’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis. There are more important things than flabby pancetta, a thin sauce and a floury brownie. I am hugely lucky I can go for a meal at all, let alone to a great restaurant with the mother of my children during a break from a month’s professional showing off. I would go back to The Shore in a heartbeat, I just happen to think we hit a bit of an off night, and as someone who has been coming to the Fringe for longer than I care to remember, I know we can all have those. In fact, I had one yesterday, and my audience appeared far less impressed with me than I was with The Shore. But in a town of reviewers, unfortunately The Shore was ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ the night we went when we really hoped for ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️. I look forward to another night, when I’m certain it will be every bit as good as the speeches at my wedding, Mick’s way with landlords and Hal’s impression of a fifties housewife.
August 2022